Unfortunately this location lacks an elevator — but it does have heritage charm, space for about 40 people, and reasonable rent. As the club develops, I envision us also including folks who can’t make it there through remote methods (phone, internet, SMS) and club members meeting up with folks at other locations.

We’ll be running an optional ratings system for bullet, blitz, rapid, standard times, over the board untimed games (with sealed move adjournment allowed) and correspondence.

We’re open to all ages and levels of ability, but my goal is to provide a fun, casual drop in setting for a broad community of adults. Most of the organized chess community in Winnipeg right now is young scholastic players (and their parents/relatives) and strong adults who play CFC rated events held by MCA.

My view is that both of these existing cohorts can contribute to my goal of making semi-organized club chess a part of Winnipeg again. If this succeeds, we’ll get more than a strong community of “old patzers” out of this — we’ll also directly develop more stronger players who will attend tournaments and more advocates of the game to spread it to young people.

On our website, http://rockerchess.ca club members will have the opportunity to contribute to the site by posting game analysis, announcements of local events, and personal reflections on the world of chess.

To encourage this drop-in spirit, we’re operating admission on a “pay what you can” basis. We’ll also need folks to join me and chip in their organizing energies. Even something as simple as picking up edibles for sale from a wholesaler can be a real help.

At some point I’d like to attempt something big and splashy to create some local buzz and press coverage. I’ve got some crazy ideas up on http://rockerchess.ca/promoideas/ . Want to make any of these happen? Got your own ideas? Let me know.

These ideas would do best if co-organized with MCA and Scholastic chess folks with the goal of promoting local chess as a whole and raising the profile of all of us.